When having breakfast, we plan the further journey. It takes 8 hours from here to Semuc Champey, the famous waterfalls. But since we want to go to our friends in El Salvador soon, we decide to go to the city of Chiquimula, which is on the way to El Salvador. Julio had heard that it is like the San Cristóbal of Guatemala. Fortunately, we also spontaneously find a couchsurfer where we can stay. We are excited to finally meet locals. :)
We take the bus again, and this ride is also adventurous. It is extremely crowded and even the street vendors push themselves into the bus at the stops and sell their goods. After about 4 hours, we arrive in Chiquimula. The city does not look nice at all, and I wonder why we ended up here.
In order to contact José, our host, we go to a restaurant that has WiFi. We order a pizza and at that moment we do not think that José and his family have their own restaurant where we can eat very well.
Since it is raining heavily at the moment, José even picks us up by car. Our 'couch' is a bed in the storage room above the restaurant. He also offers us the opportunity to do laundry. He shows us the 'washing machine' which is on the rooftop terrace and means washing by hand. Luckily, I learned how to wash by hand in Kenya. In the evening, we sit in the restaurant and drink refreshments and a lemonade (without sugar). We do not feel comfortable going out on the street here in the evening.
In total, we stay for 3 nights. One day we drive to Copan in Honduras to visit another Maya city, and on another day we go with a friend of José to the Ipala volcano and hike up to a lake in scorching heat.
